Now that we’re a few months into 2019, we’re starting to get a clearer picture, (no pun intended), of what digital-signage trends we can expect to see in 2019 and beyond. Here are five of them.

Touchscreens will take over

That may be a bit of an exaggeration. There is still very much a place for “display-only” digital-signage, however, we’re already seeing a clear progression towards digital-signage being used as a means for companies to interact with customers through the use of industrial touch screens and this is definitely something which is going to grow in importance over 2019 and into the future.

The use of apps will become standard

At current time, probably the single, biggest barrier to the use of digital signage as a means to engage with customers in an interactive manner is the need to develop the software with which to do so. Some manufacturers are starting to address this by standardizing on the popular Android operating system.

This isn’t really a huge benefit at the moment because there are very few apps suitable for use with digital signage, however, the hope (and expectation) is that moving to a standard platform with which software developers are already very familiar will encourage them to develop apps for this market and at the very least it should lower both the time and the cost of developing customized software.

Digital signage will get smarter

Even though the development of cloud computing will probably go down in history as one of the most important developments in IT, companies are becoming increasingly aware of its limitations and, hence, of the benefits to undertaking at least some level of data processing at a local level.

Arguably, there is nowhere that this is truer than in the business to consumer environment in which speed is of the essence and the time delay involved in getting data to and from the cloud could be enough to send potential customers to one of your competitors. Because of this, there is a clear benefit to creating smarter digital signage which can handle interactivity without having to rely (overly) on cloud servers.

Seamless integration with a brand’s overall infrastructure

One of the great joys of the 21st century has been the convenience of integrating our various devices into one via the cloud. Take a picture on your phone and you’ll also be able to access it from both your tablet and your desktop without any further effort.

Consumers love this and businesses have noticed. They’ve already started trying to provide a seamless customer experience regardless of how the customer chooses to interact with them and to bridge the gap between the online and offline worlds (click and collect is probably the most obvious example of this).

Right now, the aforementioned software issues make it difficult to integrate digital signage into a company’s overall infrastructure but when these are resolved, it’s odds on that companies will start working to make their digital signage an integral part of the overall brand experience. This approach will also permit for greater personalization, which is another major development.

Moves towards “acommerce”

We’ve now totally accepted “ecommerce” and it’s anticipated that the next big development will be acommerce, which is automated purchasing via self-service terminals. In principle, acommerce is already here, but at a very basic level.

The improvements in digital signage will make it possible to offer vast improvements to the customer experience such as by allowing the customer to interact with the products on offer before they make their final purchasing decision. For example, a terminal could take a photo of a customer and then allow them to see themselves “wearing” various different outfits before deciding which one(s) they wanted to buy. This could help to decrease the instances of customers taking a product home only to return it later because they discovered it wasn’t actually suitable for them.

Author Bio

Chloe Ward is a Marketing Executive for the Fortec Group and looks after the marketing for Display Technology Ltd. Chloe has a number of years experience in the digital technology sector and has superb industry knowledge of digital signage, display solutions and electronic components, having been involved in a large number of successful projects over the years.

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